John Blight (1913-1995). Courtesy PoemHunter.
John Blight (30 July 1913 - 1995) was an Australian poet.
Life[]
Born in Unley, South Australia on 30 July 1913, Blight was educated at Brisbane State High School.[1] During the Great Depression he definitively gave up formal education and tramped the Queensland outback looking for work.[2] Following the Great Depression, during his time living on one of his father’s grazing properties, “Summerlands” in the Fassifern Valley, he completed his comprehensive correspondence course in Chartered Accountancy, over fewer years, where he attained the degree of CPA and in 1939 became an accountant and subsequently an Australian Government Prices Branch Inspector in Canberra from 1944-1946. During his employment as a Chartered Account in Bundaberg, Queensland, he met and married Beverley D’Arcy-Irvine. In the 1950s the Family then settled in Maryborough, Queensland, where together with his wife and their two daughters, Katrina and Robyn he became part-owner of timber mills in the Wide Bay Burnett and Gympie region until 1968, before moving to live at the Grange in Brisbane and becoming a full-time writer in 1973.
Blight wrote ten books of poetry. Apart from his many awards and accolades, Blight received an Order Of Australia Medal (AM) in 1987 for his ‘contribution to literature and education’. Amongst his many awards was the 1976 Patrick White prize. His closest friends were Judith Wright, Val Vallis, Douglas Stewart and David Rowbotham.
He died in on May 12, 1995.[3]
Recognition[]
Awards won by Blight include: the 1964 Myer award (with A Beachcomber’s Diary winning for best Australian book of verse); the 1965 Dame Mary Gilmore Medal; the 1976 Patrick White Award for Selected Poems 1939-1975; the Grace Leven Prize for Poetry in 1984; and an order of merit for services to literature in 1987.[4]
Publications[]
- The Old Pianist: Poems. Sydney: Dymock's Book Arcade, 1945.
- The Two Suns Met: Poems. Sydney: Lyre-Bird Writers / Commonwealth Literary Fund, 1954.
- A Beachcomber's Diary: Ninety sea sonnets. Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1963.
- My Beachcombing Days : Ninety sea sonnets. Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1968.
- Hart: Poems. Melbourne: Nelson, 1975.
- Selected Poems, 1939-1975. Melbourne: Nelson, 1976.
- Pageantry for a Lost Empire. West Melbourne, Vic: Nelson, 1978.
- The New City Poems. Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1980.
- Holiday Sea Sonnets. St. Lucia, Qld, & New York: University of Queensland Press, 1985.
- Selected Poems 1939-1990. St. Lucia, Qld: University of Queensland Press, 1992.
Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.[5]
See also[]
References[]
- ↑ Australian Verse: An Illustrated Treasury, edited by Beatrice Davis, State Library of New South Wales Press, 1996
- ↑ Australian Poets and their Works, by William Wilde, Oxford University Press, 1996
- ↑ Online biographical material and sample 14-line poem, from OldPoetry.com.
- ↑ Author: John Blight, University of Queensland Press. Web, May 5, 2014.
- ↑ Search results = au:John Blight, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, May 5, 2014.
External links[]
- Poems
- John Blight at AllPoetry (3 poems)
- About
- John Blight in the Oxford Companion to Australian Literature.
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